The potted plants on the deck are all dead,
and you are not sure which slip-up to blame:
Ignorance of botany or neglect. 
One *** contained a plant you did not know.
You were not surprised when the orchid died; 
but how did the pine tree drop to dust? 
Now there, you have three pots of dead plant dirt:
crumpled leaves, wilted stems, and dried debris–
of living things conceived, grown, and scattered.
 
You failed
but you can dare 
this dirt 
to start again.

An impulse from the gut
I am mentally driving and screaming to the desert plains
                          like a mental coyote,

Dry mouth, sour tongue
I'm begging for some relief
And all I get is this ******* conventional life
And rules.

I want the wind, the drought, the sun
                                                     the stars
                                                     the dirt
                                                     the road
                                                     the sweat
                                                     the ***
                                                     the steaming muscles
                                                     the burning skin
Or just the night,

And its yellow moon to bloom in me
And ******* away.
(That's all I ask.)

Sandals slapping ******* glued stone,
Sun hitting hard soaking my clothes,
I like to pretend Im alone,
Empty houses vacant windows.
Dog **** smell wafts from my plastic bag
Scraped from a  carefully manicured lawn

Dog pants pull me from bush to bush,
Past awkward neighbors with no eyes,
Cant talk now, always in a rush
Another encounter to despise.
The trees could take the houses back over
Birds bees and deer make for good company.

My boy is four and loves the dirt,
He loves to smell the sunflowers,
Pulls them from heaven down to earth,
To softly imbibe their powers.
I stop for a minute and bow to them
And breathe their delicate blessing as long as I can.

By Arcassin Burnham


Have you ever met a young mellow kid
That goes with the flow until his dying breath,
Simple minded in a world corrupt and we can't do
Anything about it except accept death,

I know there's more to us.
Greatness grows from the dirt.
The country never seemed so beautiful.
The spirits will guide you home.

There has to be more to us.
Racists and slaughtering.
Some populations so polluted.
The spirits will guide them home.
Real home.

i've got cobwebs
i've got cobwebs dusted around my soul
of words i'd wished that you'd never told
and i'm tiptoeing around them
like i'm blind and can't see them
because that is the way i know how to love

when jesus saved the men that no one knew
he ignored the cobwebs in their hearts
and he tiptoed around them standing up straight
until they put the cross on his back and let him fall
he tripped on the cobwebs
but that was the way he was made to love

when you left and became a ghost
you'd draped your cremains inside of my soul
and they turned into dust and cobwebs
but i was told that forgetting you was how i should love

When doubts and fears are like an ocean,
I clamor to the sand -
A billion tiny grains of  deafaning voices.
I use them as soap and bleach
Against my skin to wash away the waves
Which crash against my soul.
I dig the sand with dirtied palms as far as I can go,
Deeper into the liars pit
Until I reach what lies underneath, of
Which I find regret.
So I lock my fingers into a cage and press
Into the regret, and choke it
At the bottom of the pit I dug myself,
But like spit through teeth
It shoots on through my grasp defiant and proud,
Where it buries me in its place.